I have set up a small home network (computers A and B physically connected to a router, an external disk drive connected to computer A and two printers connected to computer B).

I want to share the external drive across both computers and also access the printers from both machines. (More detail on the setup is below).

I have successfully set this up with both machines seeing and being able to use the external drive. Also the printers are both accessible from both machines.

However, at some time during the day – I think after long periods of inactivity – the connections are lost: computer B can no longer access the external drive that is on computer A, computer A can no longer use the printers on computer B and neither machine “sees” the other as computers in their workgroup. I don’t think there is any “event” that causes the loss apart from inactivity but can’t be sure.

I can’t find a way to re-establish the connections without rebooting. Rebooting computer A re-establishes the connection straight away (not, no need to reboot computer B.

Does anyone have any ideas for (a) why the connection gets lost, (b) how to prevent this happening and (c) how to re-establish the connection if it is lost without having to reboot machine A ?

The setup …..

The first computer is running Vista Home Premium and has an external USB drive (call it J:). On this machine I have enabled file and print sharing, disabled password file protection and enabled the guest account. The J: drive has been set to share and permissioned for “Everyone”

The second computer is running XP Pro. On this machine I have enabled file and print sharing and enabled the guest account.

Both machines run ZoneAlarm and Norton AntiVirus.

Both machines share the same broadband connection which is physically connected via a Netgear 834 router. Both computers are physically connected (not wireless) to the router.

On ZoneAlarm on both machines I have set the IP addresses for the Vista and XP machines to be in the Trusted Zone and allowed sharing across the Trusted Zone. Firewall settings for the Internet Zone are set to high.

Both machines are in the same workgroup (“WORKGROUP”).

I have two printers both connected off the XP machine but shared. (Longer term I will replace these with network printers).

Check the power management tab for the usb hub in device manager for both of the printers and external hdd. Set it to not turn off the device to save power.